The secretive 'Ninja' Hellfire missiles used to chop up Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri were perfected in shadowy counter-terror operations in Syria, The Mirror can reveal.
US officers launched top secret drone attacks using the six-bladed R9X missiles against “many” terror targets at the height of their operations against ISIS.
Other key terror personnel signed up to al-Nusrah, an Al-Qaeda affiliate and rebel group were also targeted using the mince-maker Hellfires in joining CIA and special forces missions.
It is believed the CIA perfected the timing and use of the blade-cutter missiles, which have concentrated impact and slice victims to death in an instant, with little risk to anyone nearby.
A source told the Mirror: “These Hellfires are very specifically used to minimise collateral damage and concentrate their lethality precisely on the target.
“The impact is enormous but the blades ensure the result is final, whilst a person not far away can be left physically untouched, albeit traumatised by the event.”
The missiles are just 4.5 long and weigh 110lbs but the source added that: “Because of the velocity and the concentration is like a bladed anvil smashing into you.
“The target has absolutely no chance and whilst the method and the aftermath is grim the target is dead in an instant.”
It is believed the drones used are the MQ-9 Reaper and the MQ-1C Gray Eagle and they are used by the CIA along with the US Special Operations Command.
The lethality of the R9X was developed further in recent years during assassination missions against key targets across Syria to great effect.
Sources say the CIA used the chaos of last year’s dramatic mass-evacuation of Kabul to home in on Zawahiri, who had recently returned to Afghanistan.
It is believed he had been in hiding in a mountainous area of Musa Qala in northern Helmand Province, where British troops fought the Taliban for over a decade.
The CIA assumed that after the Kabul withdrawal some Al-Qaeda operatives would want to move to the capital, preferring it over Afghanistan’s second city of Kandahar.
They also knew that Zawahiri, as head of al-Qaeda had close links to the most notorious clan within the Taliban franchise, the Haqqani network, headed by Sirajuddin Haqqani.
The Haqqanis have close but shadowy ties to the Pakistani intelligence agency the ISI who have long had an element of control on insurgency within Afghanistan.
The ruthless fighter - whose network has been dubbed “The Sopranos” of terror - runs a mafia-style jihad group which uses crime to fund its extremist insurgency.
The source said: “The assumption would be that Kabul was safe now as there is likely to be very little if any intelligence agency footprint there - even though there are a number of people, locals, on the CIA payroll who are at great risk.
“But Zawahiri was hiding in plain sight and had apparently abandoned years of painstaking counter-surveillance tradecraft, which led to his downfall.”
Tapping into on-the-ground Afghan sources the CIA learned a major figure was heading to Kabul and using drones, surveilled the key properties housing Taliban leaders.
But they hit the counter-terror jackpot after a many decades-long manhunt when they learned the 71-year-old terror boss was regularly seen on the balcony of a posh Kabul home.
Even more surprising was the fact it was a house owned by Haqqani himself and that the Taliban’s number two leader was a regular visitor to the home.
Zawahiri was first spotted in April and after compiling a “pattern of life” profile on his movements they assessed his balcony movement was the best opportunity for a kill shot.
The Haqqanis have close Al-Qaeda links going all the way back to the 1980's Mujahideen war against Russian occupation in Afghanistan and are behind many suicide bombings - the most famous against a CIA outpost which killed seven US spies in 2009.
Sirajjudin is described as a "mixture of Tony Soprano and Che Guevara," and has used his crime network to fund his anti-western obsession.
The Haqqani network is a pan-Pakistan and Afghan terror group funded by warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani who was a commander against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 80s. He was also Sirajuddin's father.
The group is believed to be behind the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers and thousands of Afghan troops.
Former Pakistani ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani, unrelated, dubbed Sirajuddin as a mix of “Tony Soprano and Che Guevara.”
He said recently: “His criminality feeds his ideology and his ideology feeds his criminality.
“He would say: ‘If we’re selling heroin, that will be used in the west. It will help destroy the enemy at home and if we kidnap civilians - that helps buy weapons.
“He’s not like his father who was a great Islamist warrior.
“He’s been running a criminal network as well.”
